My regrets are unfixable. You have a few up there, as well; regretting sleeping through your adolescence. That's one.
But you also have an awful lot of fixable problems up there :) That's happy news. I've got those, too, and worse am impatient as f*ck so it's frustrating as well waiting. But there's still action to be taken on them: whether it's saving up money, or the long slow work of achieving a to b to get c, or just simply waiting for time to pass
- Pretty. I fell outta the ugly tree hitting every branch on the way down :p We live in an age of modern surgical technique. Some of that I plan to fix. Most I don't. For you , Some of it may not need surgery... But instead need gym time, new clothes or a new style, different hair, makeup. Some may require surgery to get to a point you like. If not being pretty is a problem for you? There are many solutions.
- Popular. Popularity is half skill, half luck & timing. Meaning either will work, but both help! LOL I sometimes joke that "If I wanted to be liked? I'd be a vet(erinarian). Or a firefighter." ;) That's one path to popularity: The kind of work you go into. Cops, for example are almost universally hated. Not a job to go into if being liked is important to you. Unless you only care about being esteemed by your colleagues. Even if you only care about your coworkers, though, being liked by most people who meet you is either a learned skill, an accident of personality so the skill is innate ((my son is that way, charisma to spare & self confidence in spades. He's popular wherever he goes because of the charisma, and when he's targeted and bullied because of it -which always happens to popular kids/adults- it's like water off a ducks back. He couldn't care less when people shred his character, his appearance, his favorite things, etc. Which is also a warning: it's often hard to see the downside to things we don't have. Popularity comes along with a whole lot of viciousness directed your way, as well as the adoration what's more easily seen)). Me? I've been popular on accident a few times. Got zero charisma. But I moved every few months to every couple years. Some of those moves what I did -always- happened to be super popular activities. So I was an instant rock-star. Sme moves, those same actives were laaaaaaame. You dweeb. And kicked me to the bottom of the social pile. Whatever. Other moves the people I fell in with were super popular, while some moves I fell in with the outcasts. In all these moves I was the same person, although a few moves I tweaked my behaviors to see what would happen (the skill part, and it's not worth it to me). But the rest of it?. That's the luck & timing aspect. My son has popularity wherever he goes because of skill. I only have it by chance. If it's something you value? Work on those skills!!!
- Successful. This is where your age smacks you in the face like a wet fish. Almost no one is successful (by most definitions) by 21. They may be on a clearly visible path to success, but it's generally at least 10 more years before they'll know if the past 15 years of work on that path will bear fruit. The only part of this path you've "missed" is setting themselves up in highschool. Shrug. And that's fixable, also. Because to be successful? You have to set yourself up for it. Doesn't matter whether you're a criminal, mechanic, circus performer, stay at home parent, or surgeon. Any career path needs groundwork & preparation. Doesn't matter if success to you isn't career satisfaction/excellence/paycheck, but instead a rich & varied family life. It takes years of hard work to find the right people to link yourself to, children to be born, home to set up. Doesn't matter if success to you isn't interpersonal relationships or career related, but XYZ (emotional, mental, spiritual, acclaim, etc.). Doesn't matter what your vision of success is. There are many paths to it, and they all take time. So... Step 1 would be defining your vision of success, Step 2 would be laying out a few different paths to it
((Because sometimes paths have unexpected dead ends, so you need alternate routes planned... Think of the kid interning at a law firm in highschool. Wants to be a lawyer. Not only will they have backup schools... But they usually have backup avenues: state department, human rights watch or other legal NGOs, political avenues, JAG, etc. in order to strengthen their position of going into law. The kid who doesn't? Is only "successful" in their ambitions if everything goes to plan. Most people's lives don't go entirely to plan. The person who plans alternate routes can usually get to their destination. The person who doesn't? Often doesn't. Different from changing your goals (many many many people change their goals!); some people can only see one way to a goal. A roadblock comes up, and they're lost. Have nothing to fall back on. No alternate way to get there. So they bitterly go do something else entirely.))
- College. Go. (If and only if it's part of your plan). It doesn't have to be right now. It may look different than you intended (community's college for 2, Uni for 2, Ivy for masters/PHD instead of straight to Ivy. Or, since you have a partner, it's unlikely a sorority or living in dorms will be part of your college career), but if you need XYZ degrees? Get financial aid set up (or wait until you're 24 & do so), or start saving, and go. When I started school maybe 1:10 people were 30+. Now it's roughly 1:5. ANYONE can go to college. It's not like highschool. You don't age out at 18 or 22.
Belief. Bolded it, even though it's not a goal, because it is a problem. How to believe you'll have a better life? By doing it. Baby steps. Defining what you want, being realistic (don't ignore your struggles, plan around them, make them *part* of the plan... Or the plan will fail), realistic assessment (take note of each small success on your way towards a goal, in addition to reasonable timelines, placing value on things you value, etc.), taking action, and moving forward. If you can't believe you'll have a better life before you do it (and some people can), then you learn to believe by doing it.
